Category: General

Over the past few years a lot of firms have had their wrists slapped for “viral” marketing like painting sidewalks and putting little stickers all over a downtown district. 

In most cases the offenders, normally large companies, have got away with stumping up for the cost of cleaning up the mess.  But what if your clever PR tactic resulted in a jail sentence?

In Seoul, the planners behind a PR launch of a new milk product (Director of Marketing at the client, Owner of the PR firm and the even co-ordinator) have been given six months in jail and a year probation for organizing a nude performance to mark the launch of a new milk product.

Now that seems like a perfect punishment for those behind the Raging Cow incident.

Dilbert continues his expos�f PR…

Blog Relations: The practice of effectively communicating with your audience through the medium of weblogs (also known as ‘blogs’ and ‘online diaries’)

What Blog Relations is not:

• Treating bloggers as second class journalists
• Adding bloggers’ e-mail addresses to blind PR spam
• Expecting that bloggers will write about you (or your client) because you have deigned to add them to your “exclusive” media list

Now I know, gentle reader that you think I am off on a tangent again.  But this posting has been prompted by a number of things. 

First off, B.L. Ochman, the tireless force behind the Adventive I-PR mailing list (which is now under the considerable wing of the Up2Speed folks) posted a thought provoking piece on how PR people are lagging behind in terms of adopting new technologies and techiques (sign-up for I-PR now if you’re not already on the list, it has fantastic peer-created PR content).

Secondly, a number of bungled Blog Relations attempts have come to light.

At the risk of appearing like a slightly deranged down-and-out muttering to myself (too late you cry!), here are some pointed observations:

One size doesn’t fit all
Your relationship with a blogger is not the same as with an anlayst or a journalist.  In most cases they are not writing for a living, nor do they answer to a higher authority – other than you-know-who.

Flirting is not for everyone
Just because XYZ Corp. has decided that a certain blogger is worthy of your valuable time, that does not necessarily mean they will be flattered by your attentions.

Sometimes no means no
Some bloggers will never accept PR approaches.  Full Stop.  Recognize them and move on.

The workmen and tools analogy
I can’t believe that some practitioners still breach the very basic rules on online communication.  Are some of you really still sending press releases as attachments? Tell me it ain’t so

A penny for them
Preparation and thought are two much ignored parts of PR.  Think about what you are doing.  If you think you’ll help your client by whacking out a press release to a few bloggers along with your usual suspects.  Think again.

Don’t give up
There are of course thousands of bloggers who will appreciate well targeted information that’s relevant to the blogger and their audience.  It’s your job to find them.

 

On a purely personal level, I recieve very few PR pitches (which means people are scared or no one is reading this blog – that’s kind of sad in either case 🙂

However, any PR pitches I have recieved, have been well written and relevant and I have written about them.

Matt Haughey has an interesting post on his experiences with PR people and Gene Smith has also posted some salient thoughts.

I love technology, it’s a sad and depressing symptom of working for a long time in technology PR.  Of course, the affection I have for technology regularly gets me in trouble.  Too many software upgrades, too many unused PDA’s etc. These are the daily challenges for a technology-lover.

However, sometimes, it’s better to be careful about new technology. Particularly when the information you have is senstive, which let’s be honest for most PR pros it is.

Wireless is gaining a lot of momentum, the ability to suck on a latte while you’re downloading your e-mail, reviewing documents etc. But is your wireless connection secure?

Few people I know who are wireless junkies take appropriate precautions and if you have a read of Erik Sherman’s piece in the New York Times, you’ll see just how easy it is for someone to plug into your connection. Be careful out there.

“Firing it up, I start Microsoft Outlook, connect to the Bryant Park network, agree to the terms and conditions, including agreeing to forbear from hacking, and start to download my mail. Morse is watching the back and forth between my laptop and the network. In under a minute, he pulls up a screen that contains my e-mail server, user name and password. It was that easy.”

We all know great PR involves careful planning, strong execution, strong management and sometimes a little luck.  But key to your success will be the ability of your spokesperson to rise to the media challenge.

The ongoing merger battle between Oracle and Peoplesoft is intriguing. I wrote about it before, but every day the battle gets hotter and hotter and in this particular battle both CEOs are providing exemplary PR service. Take this example:

First, Craig Conway, CEO at Peoplesoft came out with this gem about the proposed takeover:

“It’s like me asking if I could buy your dog so I can go out back and shoot it.” [Bloomberg]

To which the ever-quotable Oracle CEO, Larry Ellison responded in an interview with the San Jose Mercury News:

“I think at one point, `Craigey’ thought I was going to shoot his dog,” Ellison said. “If Craigey and Bear were standing next to each other and I had one bullet, trust me, it wouldn’t be for the dog.”

Fantastic!

 Trend Watch: Moblogging.  Moblogging is the art of posting blog entries from your cell phone, normally a camera phone, which enables you to post a photo along with the entry. It’s a relatively new merger of blogging and cell phones. They are getting very excited about it over at the Online Journalism Review.

 As a software company, Microsoft has been surprisingly slow out of the gates with the blog phenomenon. Although they have begun to promote blogging as part of some of their server products.  However, one area where Microsoft is leading the way is corporate blogging.  By my (ad hoc) estimates, Microsoft seem to have more bloggers than any other firm and they continue to get loads of ink.  Check out this story from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. For a good listing of Microsoft blogs check out Microsoft-Watch.

From Gawker: The Southampton Press reports that:

“In a bizarre echo of the Lizzie Grubman fiasco, a golf cart fashioned to resemble the publicist�s infamous black Mercedes Benz SUV by the North Sea Fire Department for Southampton Village�s Fourth of July Parade struck and injured an 8-year-old boy on Friday.”

To top it off, the golf cart drove off and the boy’s parents are considerng suing, they have retained the same lawyer as some of the casualties of the first incident.

Looks like Lizzie’s exploits are going to continue to haunt her….

Corporate Babble’s objective is to highlight some of the more obtuse communications-speak that takes place in corporate America. They’ve posted a nice anecdote from the Financial Times’ Andrew Hill.  Andrew once got this exciting enquiry from a PR pro:

 “Who would be the person at the FT who would care that Eastman Chemical is using Yantra’s sophisticated logistics to sell all the components of a toothbrush, not just a few commodity elastopolymers?”

Wouldn’t that just have you itching to find out more?

I try not to put too much stuff on this blog about stuff like RSS to avoid boring you through repetition. 

However Jonathan Angel, the West coast editor at Technology Marketing has an interesting interview with Mike Vizard, editor-in-chief at CRN, on how he sees RSS fitting into the traditional publishing business.

I think it’s important that we, as a profession, track how senior editors like Mike are viewing these new technologies.  Whilst much of the new technology will fade away, we need to identify the developments than can and are impacting how we communicate.

Religous wars aside (if you’ve has the misfortune to seen any of the childish bickering amongst the RSS glitterati you’ll know just how easy it is to lose the will to live) if a new technology makes communication more effective, we have to be all over it like a rash.

Michael O’Connor Clarke posts some basic tips on dealing with the media that’s worth a read.

“The one thing that you can and should control: your mouth.”

Michael links to a posting by Robert Scoble over at Microsoft who has posted his own set of media tips.

“Speak slowly and thoughtfully and with short sentences.”